Stephen Harper: master manipulator

[applegrove]

Stephen Harper: master manipulator

By Nick Davies at the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/15/stephen-harper-master-manipulator?CMP=share_btn_fb

"SNIP.............


As Harper tries for a fourth term in office at the Canadian federal election next week, he is trailed by an extraordinarily long list of allegations. In the Watergate scandal, all the president’s men were accused primarily of breaking the law to get Nixon a second term in the White House. In Canada, some of the prime minister’s men and women have been accused not simply of cheating to win elections but of conspiring to jam the machinery of democratic government.

Some of these allegations have been proved. In the 11 years since he became leader of the country’s Conservatives, the party has been fined for breaking electoral rules, and various members of Team Harper have been caught misleading parliament, gagging civil servants, subverting parliamentary committees, gagging scientists, harassing the supreme court, gagging diplomats, lying to the public, concealing evidence of potential crime, spying on opponents, bullying and smearing. Harper personally has earned himself the rare rebuke of being found to be in contempt of his parliament.

One of his many biographers, John Ibbitson of the Globe and Mail newspaper, who is more sympathetic than most, concludes: “No prime minister in history and no political party have been loathed as intensely as Stephen Harper and the Conservative party.” Yet this deeply unpopular politician has won three elections in the last nine years. Although the Liberals are showing a late lead in the polls, Harper’s emphasis on his record on security and the economy may yet put a fourth in his trophy cabinet next week. That is what makes Harper’s politics interesting, that he has perfected the tactics of taking and holding power – in spite of the demands of democracy.

His people have been caught out more often than most. That may be because they are more brazen than most (and because they have some particularly feisty investigative reporters on their patch). But, at heart, Harper’s team are not that different from politicians across the developed world who have discovered that democracy is a pretty sweet theory but that, in reality, if you want to get hold of power and use it, there are all kinds of devious moves available that have very little to do with that antique idea.



.............SNIP"

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Given everything else his people have done, is there no suspicion that he might be

fixing elections as well? That those 'won elections' might not have actually been 'won', but 'cooked up'?

[applegrove]

2. I don't think he is fixing elections physically. He has long played on canadians with wedge issues

and such to fix the electorate as well as silencing critics. 70 Percent of the country is now wise to him. Still it looks like it will only be a minority government for the Liberals as the left and left of centre are split 3 and four ways.

[glinda]

3. He has a fondness for the Conservatives in the US so I would wonder about election integrity.

[arikara]

4. He's done devious things around the election

and I don't doubt that they wouldn't fix something if they figured they could get away with it. He got a majority with only 39% of the vote last time so they really don't have to do much just pull a coup in a couple of key ridings.

I'm going to have the feeling of rocks in my gut until this thing is over. I've been looking at a magazine called International Living, I seriously can't watch what is happening to this once great country any longer.